BALTIMORE, Maryland February 16, 2014 - What happened in the epic hockey match yesterday between the USA and Russia is something even hockey fanatics probably have never seen. It couldn't happen in the NHL or in the NCAA. But there was Team America's T J Oshie taking a sobering six shootout turns and scoring four goals to give the Americans a hard-fought win. Only in international hockey can a player take as many shots in a shootout as Oshie did. The shootout only occurs if the two teams are still tied after three full periods and an overtime period. In the shootout each team selects three different players, and they shoot alternately. After those three rounds the score in the shootout was 1-1. Oshie scored on the first shootout shot but no one else scored for the USA. The Russians missed their first two shots thanks to outstanding goal-keeping by the American net-minder Jonathan Quick. But on the final shot, Ilya Kovalchuk finally beat Quick - who plays in the NHL for the Los Angles Kings - to tie the shootout and send it to extra rounds. This is where Team USA coach Dan Bylsma continually selected Oshie to shoot for the Americans. Oshie is not a high scorer in the NHL - he has never scored as many as 20 goals over a season - but is an expert in shootouts, owning just about the highest success rate on such shots in the NHL. This ability combined with the International Rule that allows a coach to pick the same player to shoot in each round once the first three rounds are completed, are what convinced Bylsma to put Oshie on the American Squad. Oshie twice rescued Team USA in the extra rounds by scoring goals after Russia had scored to start a round, enabling the USA to play on. In the 8th round of the day it was the Russians turn to shoot first, and Quick stopped Kovalchuk. That made it the Americans' turn, and Bylsma again had Oshie take the shot. For the third time in the shootout he beat Russian Goal Keeper Sergei Bobrovsky by shooting right between his legs, and suddenly the Americans had won. It was Oshie's fourth goal in six shootout attempts. Bobrovsky - an NHL Goalie with the Columbus Blue Jackets - was outstanding throughout the contest. He stopped American Paul Kane on a breakaway during overtime to keep the game tied. His only weakness was Oshie. The USA has already been back in action, smashing outmanned Slovenia, 5-1, behind a hat trick by Phil Kessel. The game started at 7 am Eastern Standard time, and in the first 4:33 Kessel had two goals. The win clinches a quarter-final berth for the United States, who now have two days off.
In Gainesville, Florida on Saturday, the University of Maryland's Baseball Team scored an impressive 9-7 win over No. 21 Florida to even their opening weekend series at a game apiece. Freshman Pitcher Mike Shawaryn earned the win by scattering 3 hits and one earned run over five and two-thirds innings of work, and the Terps built up a 6-0 lead through five and one-half innings in the victory. Center-fielder Charlie White, second-baseman Brandon Lowe and catcher Kevin Martir each drove in two runs for Maryland (1-1). The two teams will play the rubber game of the series tomorrow at noon. The Terps are scheduled to play their home opener Tuesday afternoon against Rider.
Maryland's Basketball team lost a heartbreaking game at Duke, 69-67, despite outstanding games from Dez Wells, Jake Layman, Nick Faust and Charles Mitchell. Mitchell's potential game-winning shot rolled slowly off the rim in the final two seconds and Duke ahead by only one point. Layman led Maryland with 18 points, followed by Wells with 17, all of which were scored in the final 15 minutes of the game. Mitchell had 12 points and Faust had 7. Layman, Mitchell and Faust kept Maryland in the game in the first half when Wells picked up three quick fouls. Terp coach Mark Turgeon also kept Wells out to start the second half, but when he returned with 15 minutes left he had fire in his eyes. Time and again he scored in transition or scored inside on scintillating drives to the basket as Maryland overcame double-digit Blue Devil leads to take their own leads in the final five minutes.
At the end of one of his midweek shows, Rush Limbaugh did a commentary on what he contends are the nearly unbeatable Democratic election plans. He says the Democratic strategy for all future presidential elections will be to continually ramp up federal entitlements - no matter the implications for future generations - so that the growing number of Americans receiving entitlements will make defeating Democrats a statistical impossibility. Along with advocating entitlement increases, Democratic candidates will constantly point to opponents as the ones who want to shut off the entitlement spigots..
Knock away all the non-sense, and it comes down to this: the uber leftists say to the "low informaton voters" who continue to support obama: if you don't vote for us, you won't get nearly as much money from the government as you have been getting.
For now, for the next few years, two years, whatever many years, until the federal government is entirely broke, they will keep saying this and doing this, and then it will be over. Over? Over. At some point in the future the government will have to stop the money giveaway. It's true that the feds can merely print money and then give it away. But even that stunt has a limit. In other countries where such things happened, they eventually are hit with hyper-inflation. What used to cost one dollar will start to cost $10,000, and then $100,000, and then one million dollars, and you get the picture. Will it be years? Nobody knows.
The point Limbaugh was making is that if the uber leftists stay in control, and know that to stay in control going forward they have to keep the money flowing, the path outlined above is inevitable. There are two ways to stop it, at least in theory. One way is for the GOP to win back the White House and the Congress. Limbaugh thinks that it is getting less and less likely to happen because more and more people are on the federal "dole;" i.e., more and more people are getting entitlement money. And when a majority of voters are getting federal money and don't want to stop getting federal money, they will only vote for the candidate who promises to keep increasing entitlement spending.
Ever the radical leftist, obama has seized on this depressing reality to gain re-election despite one of the worst White House tenures in the nation's history. The people who voted him back in apparently care little about the country's well-being or the security of the country in the very near future. For them, the future is at the end of the month when the federal check arrives. They vote to continue the checks. If the country cannot come to grips with this narcissism, it is doomed to go bankrupt and worse a lot sooner than people think. Without discussing, in depth, the implications of such a huge national debt, one of the most immediate implications is a quick and painful end to the country's military superiority. If you think Iran and China are menacing now, think how awful things wouldbe if we had to do what they wanted us to do. What will happen to the people who live in Israel if the United States can't back them up? None of this matters one bit to obama and his functionaries on the very far left, including Mrs. Clinton. While we wait for the outcome of the next two national elections, count on obama to continue to vilify the successful and turn our democracy into a soft dictatorship.
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